


frame

by enamuko



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: Ashe always likes to take pictures of Ignatz while he's painting.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Ignatz Victor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	frame

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just need to write some soft bois being soft with each other.

Ignatz has become intimately familiar with the sound a camera shutter makes, but it still always manages to catch him off guard.

He whips his head around just in time to see Ashe smiling at him, hidden behind the big, professional looking camera that his (far richer than Ignatz) friends had gotten him for his birthday.

“Don’t mind me,” Ashe says as he lowers the camera to look at the picture he’s taken on the small preview screen. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“A-Ashe,” he stammers. “I wish you wouldn’t sneak up on me like that…”

“I’m sorry,” Ashe says, not sounding particularly sorry. “I didn’t want to disturb you while you were painting. You looked so focused…”

It’s true; Ashe is sneaky, but he was also probably too absorbed in his work to notice him come in.

On his easel is a portrait of Ashe— or, at least, the bare bones of one, a canvas with a sketch and the reference pictures he’d taken on his much less impressive phone camera open next to him. He’d had Ashe pose for the initial sketch, preferring to do things the ‘old fashioned’ way, but instead of making him sit through the entire painting process— which was proceeding _slowly_ between shifts and classes— would have just been cruel, and he needed to make sure he captured every colour exactly right.

He’s not very comfortable with portraits; human faces never seem to turn out quite _right_ when he draws them. He prefers landscapes, where he can play with light and shadow and colour and not have to worry about his art missing that… Vital _spark_ that always seems to elude him when he’s painting people. They always just seem so dull and lifeless, staring out at him from the canvas robotically, like they’re bored of him trying and failing to capture them correctly.

...But his current homework assignment for _FINE ART 3S06_ is a portrait, and so here he is. He could have done a _self_ portrait like so many of his other classmates, but the idea of staring at himself in a mirror for hours on end made him so anxious he felt physically nauseous.

So, he’d picked the only person he knew he could stare at for hours on end without feeling weird about it— except now that person was standing in his room, watching him paint, and he’s feeling very weird about it.

He tries not to. He knows Ashe isn’t the sort of person to judge him for— well, just about anything, really, and especially not his creative process or anything he might be struggling with. It’s just… A _thing_.

Ashe hums as he sits on the armrest of his chair, leaning over to show him the picture he’d taken. “I can delete it if you want.”

Ignatz has never really _liked_ having his picture taken, remembering too many school picture days with braces and big taped together glasses and an awkward haircut his mother had given him in their kitchen, but _Ashe_ likes taking his picture and that’s more important.

“It’s fine, I don’t mind.” He turns back to his painting, not wanting his colour mixing to go to waste. “Maybe if you take more pictures of me working on it, I’ll actually get this done on time.”

He’s joking, but part of him is hoping it will prove true. His motivation to work on it has been waning, and the last thing he needs is to end up having to pull an all-nighter right before it’s due in a panic.

Ashe hums again and stays leaned into him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and turning his head to press a kiss to Ignatz’ temple. He’s leaning a bit more of his weight on him than is strictly comfortable, but from the way he seems to melt into him and from the way Ignatz can see his eyes drooping heavily if he looks at him out of the corner of his eye, he’s so tired that Ignatz doesn’t want to say anything.

“How’s work?” he asks, less because he doesn’t know how work is going and more because how tired Ashe is seems like something he _should_ comment on but he doesn’t quite know _how_.

“Oh, it’s the same as always,” Ashe answers, but Ignatz has to guess at most of the sentence because Ashe says it through a jaw cracking yawn.

The chair isn’t really made for it, and it’s distracting Ignatz from his painting, but he loops his arm around Ashe’s waist and carefully coaxes him to move from sitting on the arm of his desk chair to sitting in his lap.

Like the incredibly lazy cat they have that went from being a stray Ashe fed in front of their apartment building to something that they have to hide from the landlord every time there’s an apartment inspection, Ashe makes a small noise in the back of his throat as he’s tugged into Ignatz’ lap but goes along willingly, almost bonelessly. Ignatz goes back to painting— more difficult when he has a fully grown man falling asleep in his lap, but he’s a painter. He’ll find a way to make it work.

With his eyes half closed like he’s about to fall asleep, Ashe lifts his camera and points it at them. Since it’s a professional camera not exactly made for taking selfies, and he’s clearly exhausted, it takes him a few tries before he manages to take a picture where they’re both… more or less in the frame.

Ashe shows him the picture, but Ignatz isn’t looking at it; he’s looking at him, and how quietly pleased he is staring down at that little screen.

“It’s lovely,” he says, looking down at the picture just as Ashe glances over at him, blushing. It’s not like he cares if his boyfriend catches him staring at him (okay— he’s maybe a _little_ self-conscious about it), but he doesn’t want him to think he’s just flattering him.

Although just from looking at it, Ignatz can tell that it’s… Not exactly Ashe’s best work. But that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be.

“Why is it you only ever take pictures of me when I’m painting, anyway?” he asks, distracting Ashe with a squeeze around the midsection and a kiss to the cheek.

“Because you always get this really cute look of concentration on your face,” Ashe says, leaning over to squish their cheeks together, proving that the chair _really_ was not made to hold two people. “You only ever make that face when you’re painting… If I take pictures of you, then I get to see it all the time without having to worry about disturbing your work.”

Ignatz feels his face burn as he flushes all the way from the tips of his ears to the bottoms of his feet. He wonders if Ashe ever realizes just how… Not embarrassing, but _flustering_ the things he says can be.

Then again, that’s just one of the many things he loves about him. Just how… _Earnest_ he is. No matter what Ashe says, even if it’s something Ignatz does not feel confident about in the least, he’s never doubted the truth behind his words. Not once.

“You can take as many pictures as you want,” Ignatz says, because even if he doesn’t think he looks great in pictures, the fact that it makes Ashe happy is more than worth it. “And you can watch me work whenever you want, too.”

“Wouldn’t someone watching you paint… Throw you off, or something?”

Ignatz appreciates Ashe’s gentle wording, because he’s pretty sure that what he actually means is ‘won’t you get too nervous to paint if you know someone is watching you’, but Ignatz just hums like Ashe always does and leans into him.

“Not if it’s you,” he says, and means it.


End file.
